The next Sunday behind the store shed at church we all met up and swapped any news we had. Caleb looked a bit shocking with his head almost shaved. I could tell when Dad first saw him on Sunday morning he wasn’t at all pleased, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Caleb said he was teased at school about it and the nasty boys called him Caleb the Bald Eagle. I thought it might have been worse, but anything called out in a nasty way sounds upsetting, even if it’s ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!’. It’s often not about the words, I reckon.

Caleb was even more certain now this was all part of a lead-up to Dad being sacrificed. He said Lincoln told him at school that they shaved the heads of sympathisers in the war, and he didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he had a lot of sympathy for Dad, so he could see this was a bad sign.

I wish now I had listened to Caleb more carefully, or asked him more questions about what he was thinking, or found a way to reassure him. I wish I had told Dad about how upset he was getting. But I didn’t.

CHAPTER 20

I’ve heard grown-ups say, ‘Be careful what you wish for’. I know what that means now.

It had seemed so unfair that Dad had dinner at Aunty Maisie’s every Sunday, which meant that Caleb got to see him for so much extra time. And a couple of times he went to tea at the Hodgesons’. But he never came to Henley Beach. So when I heard Aunty Jean answer the phone as I walked past it, and was pretty sure I heard Dad’s voice, I hoped this meant it was my turn to have him come over to tea. I was afraid to ask outright, and Aunty Jean just gave me a glowering look until I had walked away. I huddled near the door, but I couldn’t hear anything. I was so keen to see him that I actually did some Sunday school homework to show Aunty Jean to get into her good books.

I took it to her at the time I was expected to present for inspection, and was pleased to see that Uncle Paul was already home, which surprised me because he was often late from work, but I’d never known him to be early. I thought perhaps Dad was coming for tea that very night and Uncle Paul had come home especially early to have time with him too. I wouldn’t mind sharing Dad with Uncle Paul. Well, actually I would, but another thing grown-ups say is ‘Beggars can’t be choosers’.

When I walked into the kitchen, Aunty Jean and Uncle Paul were sitting close to each other at the dining table, leaning in and whispering. For a moment I had a horrible feeling Dad was coming over because I’d done something wrong again. I stood at the kitchen door for a moment, allowing the movie of the last couple of weeks to roll over in my head, but I couldn’t put my finger on anything I should worry about.